


Road Trip

by Seiya234



Series: Transcendence AU [2]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Alternate Universe - Transcendence, Gen, Transcendence AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-27
Updated: 2015-02-27
Packaged: 2018-03-15 10:51:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3444401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seiya234/pseuds/Seiya234
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Mabel and Dipper drive to Seattle, and even as a demon, Dipper still gets car sick.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Road Trip

"Mabel, you know I could just blip us there right?"  
  
His sister looked over from packing up their Grunkle’s beater, and blew a raspberry at him.  
  
“Pbbbbbt, come on Dipper where’s the fun in that? We are going on an adventure! We can’t just ‘instantly appear’ that’s just boring!”  
  
“Mabel, we are going to Seattle to bust up a secret meeting of the five most deadliest cults in Washington, I don’t really know if that counts as an adventure.”  
  
“PSHAW!”  
  
Grunkle Stan came out with one of Mabel’s suitcases and Dipper popped onto the physical plane quickly to plead his case.  
  
“Stan! Stan, don’t you need your car this weekend? For, um, you know, stuff?”  
  
Stan saw what Dipper was trying to do and completely ignored his silent plea.  
  
“Ha! Kid the Library opens next week; the only thing I’ll be doing for the next few days is organizing and getting ready. Speaking of which, you two get back by Sunday; I’m going to need you two layabouts.”    
  
  
“But we are only eighteen; what if Mabel gets pulled over?”  
  
Stan raised an eyebrow. “Then she’ll show the officer her license and knowing her, she probably won’t get a ticket at all.”  
  
He clapped his grand-nephew on the shoulder.  
  
“Look kid, it’ll be fine, I promise. Besides, it’d do you some good to take the slow path sometimes.”  
  
Dipper squinted at Stan. That was….surprisingly good advice from his Grunkle.  
  
He was about to ask if Stan had been reading Mabel’s advice books again when there was a loud backfire from the engine, and then peals of a car horn.  
  
Mabel stuck her head out of the window. “DIIIIPPERRRRR!” she yelled at the top of her lungs.  
  
“It’s just six hours Dip. Now get out of my hair and scram.”  
  
“What hair?”  
  
“Har har har, very funny, verrrrry funny.”  
  
————

Their Dad had started to teach Mabel how to drive before they moved out but it had been Grunkle Stan who had done the bulk of the teaching.  
  
Thus why Mabel was currently doing 95 on the highway and yelling “I AM PURE SPEED.”  
  
Dipper was immortal and if, God forbid they got in an accident he could make sure his twin was fine.   
  
However, he had also had never been so terrified in his life.   
  
And considering that he had both fought demons and raised the dead that was saying something.  
  
Dipper tried his best to relax and consoled himself with the thought that at least Mabel, unlike their grand-uncle, could stay in the lines.  
  
——-  
  
“How long has it been again?”  
  
Mabel looked at her watch from its perch on the steering wheel.  
  
“Forty three minutes.”  
  
“How much longer do we have to go?”  
  
“Five and a half hours.”  
  
“Uggggggggh, I could have gotten us there in a literal blink of an eye.”  
  
Mabel looked over at him briefly and there was the faintest hint of deep navy blue in her aura.  
  
“Don’t you want to spend time with me Dip?” Mabel asked, her tone attempting to be light and mostly managing it.  
  
Oh no, oh no he had hurt Mabel’s feelings.  
  
“Of course I do Mabel! You’re like, my most favorite person in the world! I just….don’t see the point of taking the car when we have, um, me.”  
  
Mabel smiled and her aura relaxed. She boffed Dipper on his shoulder.  
  
“MABEL BOTH HANDS ON THE WHEEL PLEASE.”  
  
“Relax Dipper. And I’m driving us because this is supposed to be an adventure!”  
  
Before Dipper could point out that they frequently went on adventures, Mabel gently added, “A normal one. Not that I don’t like the other ones but I thought it’d be nice to have a day where we play road games and eat bad food and pull over once or twice just like-“  
  
“When we got dropped off at Gravity Falls?”  
  
Mabel smiled. “Yeah.”  
  
A comfortable silence reigned for a minute, then Mabel asked, “Wanna play Picnic?”  
  
“Sure. And hey, I already have my A-on that billboard, ‘Arrest’.”  
  
“Dipper!”  
  
———  
  
“So have you made your decision yet?”  
  
Mabel finished merging into the left lane, and then snuck a quick peek at Dipper.  
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
“I saw two letters on the table last night- Oregon State and Central Oregon Community College. Congrats on getting into both by the way.”  
  
“Yeah, sure, thanks.”  
  
Dipper felt confused. He was pretty sure he hadn’t said anything wrong, and he knew Mabel had been planning on getting a degree in business ever since they had moved in with Grunkle Stan and she had started selling her sweaters online.  
  
“Mabes?” he asked hesitantly.  
  
“It’s nothing.”  
  
Dipper frowned. Okay, now he  _knew_  it was something.  
  
“Mabel, come on, please? You know you can tell me anything.”  
  
He paused for a second. “Um, also I can, um, see your aura, and I know you’re upset-“  
  
His twin sighed heavily and said “I’m going to Bend.”  
  
“Oh, okay. Cool?”  
  
Mabel heaved out a massive sigh. “Are you just saying that?”  
  
Dipper was dumbfounded. “What? No! What, why-?”  
  
Normally the sight of her brother stuttering (and shooting off cutie blue and yellow sparks) would be enough to make Mabel smile but not now apparently.  
  
Mabel seemed like she regretted saying anything. Dipper gently patted her shoulder, making sure his claws didn’t get caught in the thick wool of her sweater.   
  
The car was silent for a minute, and then Mabel finally said, “I thought you’d want me to go to Oregon State.”  
  
“I’m not the one going to college, you are, so you go where you need to.”  
  
That apparently was the wrong thing to say because Mabel began to tear up.  
  
“Oh no, Mabel, I’m so sorry, oh shit can you still see the road? Wait, that was bad too, f̧uć̨̨k̛͢͢, uh-“  
  
Mabel hiccupped and guided Stan’s beater to the shoulder of the road and turned the car off. A big fat tear rolled down her face which was rapidly becoming red and splotchy.  
  
Dipper sat paralyzed in the passenger seat, unsure of what to say or do.  
  
The deer in headlights look on his face however made Mabel choke out a laugh. She rummaged over his lap in the glove box for a tissue, blew her nose with a blort, and finally said “Remember when we were twelve and that guy came in from UCLA and gave us a talk about staying in school and going to college?”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“And how excited you were and it was all you could talk about until we got to Gravity Falls? And Mom and Dad had to remind you that we had some time?”  
  
“Yes?” Dipper replied, still unsure of where Mabel was going with this.  
  
Mabel huffed, frustrated that her brother didn’t understand. “Aren’t you upset? That we’re not doing the big college thing? That I’m going to stay home with Stan and take classes online and-“  
  
She sniffed again and knuckled away tears from her eyes.  
  
“-and it’s not fair that you can’t go to college but I just…  I just…. the idea of being in school for another four years-“  
  
She choked out a sob. “- _really sucks!_  And I’m being selfish and-“  
  
“WHOA! Whoa there, Mabel, no, no you aren’t.”  
  
She raised an eyebrow at him (something he still hadn’t mastered) and he pulled Mabel in as best he could in a hug.  
  
“I mean it.  
  
“Mmmmf.”  
  
“No really! Mabel, you’ve done so much for me these past six years. It’s-” Dipper struggled a bit to think of the right words. “It’s okay to do this. You’re not being selfish. I don’t mind, I promise.”  
  
Mabel snorfed up some snot into her nose. “Really?”  
  
“Mabel! I have literally all the time in the world to learn anything I want! I only got a little time with you. All I want is for you to be happy.”  
  
Mabel beamed, teeth newly freed of their braces, and then she cried in Dipper’s shirt for another few minutes.  
  
Finally she pulled back a bit and looked at her twin.  
  
“Dipper, you’re the best.”  
  
“No you are.”  
  
“No, youuuuuuuu.”  
  
They continued in this vein as Mabel pulled back on the road for the next ten miles.  
  
——  
  
“FY7-618. Well that’s ‘f’ down.”  
  
“Dipper!”  
  
“What?”  
  
Mabel frowned at her brother. “License plates don’t count for your game. Don’t cheat.”  
  
Dipper huffed and crossed his arms. “Fine.”  
  
——-  
  
On the third go through of the radio dial, Mabel finally admitted defeat.  
  
“Hornswaddle. What are we going to listen to now?”  
  
“Hornswaddle….Mabel have you been hanging out with McGucket again?”  
  
“Dipper that’s not important! What’s important is that there’s no radio and Stan’s car doesn’t even have a tape player.”  
  
Dipper took off his hat, reached inside, and pulled out a small boombox that he placed on the dash of the car. A small flicker of flame popped from his fingers, and there was a “shuck” sound.  
  
At Mabel’s look, Dipper explained, “I stuck it on there so it won’t fly off.”  
  
She beamed. “Dipper Pines, you’re the best. What CD’s do you have in your hat?”  
  
Three minutes later they were both singing along to Babba’s Greatest Hits, and the windows of the cars they passed cracked with every high note Dipper hit.  
  
(The boombox never left Stan’s car. Dipper did too good of a job sticking it on and not even he could get it off.)  
———  
  
“Ooooh! Liquefied!”  
  
Dipper looked up from the mystery novel he was absentmindedly flipping through.  
  
“Mabel, you made that up.”  
  
“No, seriously, look at that tanker passing us!”  
  
The twins watched as a tanker passed them by, the words “Liquefied Chicken” emblazoned on the side.  
  
“Oh,” Dipper said. “Um, ew.”  
  
“What do you think they mean by liquefied chicken? Is it like ground together beaks and feet and Dipper are you okay? You look pale-“  
  
(As it turned out, Dipper still barfed golden sparkles even when he wasn’t eating candy, a fact that Mabel would remind him of for the rest of her life)  
  
——  
  
“Hey Dipper make a deal with me.”  
  
“Why? It’s only us in the car and you can see and touch me just fine.”  
  
Mabel sighed with great sadness. “Oh well, I guess my brother the great and terrible demon doesn’t want to stop at the A&W up ahead and get a root beer float the size of his head. Or three foot long hot dogs or a basket of fries or-“  
  
“DEAL  _DEAL D̵̺E͏̗̯͓ͅA̢͙̙̭̖L̨̜̜̦̮!”_  
  
Forty five minutes Mabel was staring in awe at Dipper, who was happily slurping down his third root beer float. It was one thing to know her brother’s body was different now, completely and utterly so.  
  
It was another to see Dipper order one of everything off the menu, wolf it down in seven minutes, and go for another round. She was pretty sure the carhops were huddled around the window facing their car and whispering in sheer terror.  
  
Dipper burped next to her.  
  
“Bro bro, you better not ralph in here-I don’t want to clean up sparkle barf twice in one day.”  
  
“Mabel!” Dipper cried, blushing deep red, and Mabel grinned. Score once again for the alpha twin.  
  
Dipper finished his float and looked sadly down at the cup.  
  
“Do you think I can order one to go?”  
  
——  
  
“Navarro.”  
  
Mabel looked around her.  
  
“Where did you see that?” she asked Dipper suspiciously.  
  
“It was a sticker on the back of that truck that just went by but they were going pretty fast and MABEL THAT DOESNT MEAN SPEED UP TO CATCH THEM-“  
  
As it turned out, Stan’s beater could push up to one hundred, and Dipper was fairly sure he saw his life flash in front of his eyes.  
  
—-  
  
“What do you think Stan is going to have us do when we get home?”  
  
There was no response from Dipper. Mabel peeked over quickly to see if he was asleep.   
  
Dipper was resolutely staring out of the window, and was sitting like he had a big old stick up his butt.  
  
Mabel huffed. Well that wouldn’t do.   
  
“Spill Dipdops, what’s got your goat?”  
  
“Nothing,” Dipper muttered.  
  
Mabel blew a long and hard raspberry.   
  
“Ew, Mabel, you got some spit on me,” Dipper complained, yanking a yellow handkerchief out of his suit pocket like the well-dressed dork that he was and wiping his face off.  
  
“I’ll get more on you unless you tell me what’s wrong.”  
  
“What? Ew, Mabel, no-“  
  
Mabel stuck her tongue out as far as it could go and prepared to blow another raspberry.  
  
“Agh, alright!” Dipper caved and Mabel grinned.   
  
“I just can’t believe that whole summer, this whole time, Grunkle Stan had a library’s worth of books on magic and the supernatural! Under my nose!”  
  
“Technically, under the floor in his weird basement,” Mabel pointed out.   
  
“Mabel you know what I mean! And he never told me!”  
  
Oh that was  _hysterical_. “Like how you never told him at first about when Bill possessed you?”  
  
“That was different.”  
  
“Or how you promised not to go digging for trouble and then we went into that bunker?”  
  
“Hey, he promised that he didn’t have any other big secrets and we know how that turned out!”  
  
Mabel gave Dipper her best shit eating grin and Dipper huffed.  
  
“I know, I know,” he grumbled, and Mabel reached over to pat him on the shoulder quickly before putting her hands back on the wheel.  
  
“It’s just….I don’t know, ironic I suppose,” Dipper said after another minute. “All that knowledge was so close and now I don’t even need it and…”  
  
Mabel’s face crumpled. “Oh Dipper.” She reached her hand over again to hold his and he didn’t say anything about having both hands on the wheel so he must have been upset.

They drove like that for a few minutes, until Dipper wiped the corner of his eye because it was itchy and totally not because there was a tear there.

“I think you should make Stan pay,” Mabel said casually.

“Oh?”

“Yeah, Grunkle Stan should totally have to give you like, one of those ten pound chocolate bars before you help.”

“Maybe two?”

“Shoot for the stars Dip; go for three.”  
  
——  
“Z82MRY… that’s ‘z’! I win! GO MABEL GO MABEL GO!”

Dipper gaped in shock at the little Fiat with the offending plates that zipped by and then at his sister.

“No you didn’t, you cheated!”

“Nuh-uh.”

“Mabel, you said license plates didn’t count!”

Mabel gave him the biggest “cat that ate the canary” grin he had ever seen on her face before.

“ _Technically_ , I said that they didn’t count for ‘ _your_  game.’ Not mine.”

Dipper gaped at her.

“Man, for a demon, you really miss the fine details some times. You really need to hang out with Grunkle Stan more.”

—-

They pulled up to a Motel Six around dinner time on the outskirts of Seattle.

Dipper phased out of the car, and stretched, even though he really didn’t need to.

“Yup, Mabel, I have to admit….taking the long way wasn’t a bad idea after all.”

Mabel popped her head out of the trunk.

“Of course! All my ideas are great ideas!”

She pulled a suitcase which Dipper knew held her bat and crossbow in it out. “Now lets go inside and get ready!”

(Three hours later, Mabel was stabbed through the heart, and even as he pulled her to the Mindscape to make the deal he never,  _ever_  wanted to with her, her words kept ringing treacherously through his head.)


End file.
